


Dance With Me

by Chrysalin



Category: Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms, Original Work
Genre: Dancing, F/M, Fae & Fairies, Hearing Voices, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-12 03:03:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19123255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chrysalin/pseuds/Chrysalin
Summary: For as long as Kayla can remember, she's heard someone asking her to dance.





	Dance With Me

**Author's Note:**

> This story was very vaguely inspired by The Twelve Dancing Princesses and sort of mutated into this.

_ Dance with me… _

 

Kayla had heard it a million times, it seemed.

 

_ Dance with me, Kayla… _

 

Kayla was a princess – not a grand one, or anything of the sort. Rather than perfect blond hair, hers was midnight black. Instead of a porcelain complexion, this princess was tanned from her time outdoors. Her eyes, in her opinion, were her only decent feature: the deep grey of storm clouds. She was a quiet girl in a kingdom where nothing happened. That isn’t to say she was weak willed or mild. She was stubborn despite her silence and while she would hold her tongue in court, she and her father often argued for hours when she didn’t agree with his decisions. She was his only child and had been taught to rule, after all. She would be a wonderful queen.

 

If not for that damned voice. 

 

The first time she had heard it, she had been six. Her mother had died a few days before, and she was being buried that morning. Kayla had been lying in bed trying to blink back her tears, for princesses had to be strong, when the lilting words seemed to drift through her mind.  

 

_ Dance with me… _

 

‘Who are you?’ she thought in response. ‘Mama?’

 

The answering chuckle was masculine, but it was entirely unthreatening.  _ I am not your mother, little princess. Come away and dance. _

 

‘I can’t dance.’

 

A laugh again.  _ Anyone can dance in this world, Kayla. Come and you will see. _

 

Her nurse had come in then, shocking her from the reverie. Even as she prepared for the funeral, dressing in a new black gown she knew she could never bring herself to wear again, the voice did not return. 

 

Later, she asked her father where the dead went.

 

King Ethan ran one hand down his beard. “Well, no one knows save God. Still, I think your mother must be dancing with the faeries now.”

 

Those words haunted her for some time. If her mother was with the faeries, were they after her now?

 

* * *

 

Years later, Kayla was grown and preparing for her marriage. Her husband to be, a lord of a nearby demesne, was a good and kind man, but she had to wonder if they would suit. She did not know how to be a wife when she was haunted by the voice of another.

 

She tried with Daniel, really she did. He was charming and witty, and he did not forget she was the one who would wear the crown. He wouldn’t try to steal her position from her, of that Kayla was sure. 

 

She went to her father one day after the wedding, much as she had all those years ago when her mother had died. “Father, if the faeries took Mother, do they want me as well?”

 

“Fairies?” the king repeated, startled. “Good gracious, child, what do you mean?”   
  


She frowned, brushing her heavy black braid from her shoulder as she fidgeted with the end. “You told me that Mother had gone to dance with the faeries after she died.”

 

King Ethan shook his head. “Did I say such a thing? My dear, I would have meant it as a comfort to you. There are no faeries in this land.”

 

“I thought it might have been a curse. She died so young.”

 

“No,” he said gently. “Your mother was not a strong woman after you were born. She only became ill and passed away. Few women of this family regain their health after a birth.”

 

Kayla gnawed her lip for a moment. “So I am to die as well? I will have my child, son or daughter, but not live to see it grow?”

 

“Not necessarily,” her father answered.

 

“Why?”

 

“You are far stronger than your mother, my little princess.” She flinched. ‘Little princess’ was something the voice called her. “I think you will survive.”

 

* * *

 

The king died, and Kayla inherited the crown. She was a good queen, kind and generous, and her husband was an able partner in the work. Still she couldn’t love him.

 

_ Dance with me, Kayla. Have you not dawdled long enough? _

 

She twitched. The voice had been coming more frequently as she aged, and it was difficult to ignore when the simple words were laced with so much…  _ temptation _ . Almost thirty years of refusing to heed its call had done nothing to ease the urge she felt to give in. It was more than a request for a dance, with hidden layers and hints of many things. Lust, perhaps, but more.

 

“My queen?”

 

She shook her head and focused. “What was that, Chamberlain?”

 

He returned to his lists as she listened without hearing. 

 

* * *

 

In the end, it was not she who died without being able to see her child grow up, but her husband. Daniel was in a terrible accident while he had been riding in the forest. Her twins, barely old enough to understand their father would never return, wept incessantly as she sang to them and rubbed their backs.

 

Moira blinked at her mother, eyes a mirror of Kayla’s own. “Where do the dead go?”

 

It was an eerie echo of the question the queen had asked her father so long ago, and she hesitated to answer.

 

_ Really, Kayla. Have you not lingered longer than you should? Join the dance and be free. _

 

‘I can’t,’ she replied furiously. ‘My children need their mother.’

 

_ As you did? _

 

She sighed as her son looked up at her as well. Rather than the darker coloring of the women of the family, little Erik was a perfect image of his father – beautiful gold with sparkling blue eyes. “Yes, where did Father go?”

 

Kayla bundled them close, not caring about the damage they were doing to her court gown. “He has gone to God. Your father was a good man, and he will be welcome in heaven.”

 

“He won’t go to the faeries?” Moira asked, wrinkling her nose. 

 

‘Drat that nurse for reading them those stories,’ the queen thought. She didn’t want her children to even think of the unseen magical creatures until they were old enough to understand the dangers they posed. Unlike her father, Kayla knew they were not gone. “The faeries take ladies, my darling. Your father will go to the angels instead.”

 

“Why only ladies?” Erik wanted to know.

 

“I don’t know.”

 

The voice was muttering something, but she pointedly ignored it. 

 

* * *

 

_ Enough is enough. You need not remain here a moment more. _

 

The twins were eighteen now, lovely as a picture. She watched as they waltzed across the ballroom, their tutor keeping time. Kayla had never been so graceful. 

 

Moira was promised to a king across the sea. It was fortunate she was smitten, for the princess had no love of travel and had been afraid to leave her family and home. Still, the young Michael had enchanted her, and she him, despite her being older than the other princesses who had been presented to him. The wedding was only a month away. 

 

Her brother was their mother’s heir, of course. He was both firstborn and the only son. Erik had remained the very image of his father and would doubtless be able to marry whomever he desired. More, he would do well as king when she was gone.

 

‘I cannot leave until Moira is wed and Erik crowned. You know that.’

 

A sense of anger brushed against her, but it got no response from Kayla. The voice had been angry for almost five years. 

 

_ You can. You should. The dance is calling you, little princess. No. Little queen. You will not be able to resist much longer. _

 

She hated to admit it, but in that the voice was right. The lure of its call continued to grow every day, and she wondered if it would drive her mad. There were rumors she already was. Still, she did her job well and the whispers remained only that.

 

‘Who are you?’ she asked. Not for the first time, but she had never received a reply. It was rare for the voice to say anything at all once she did.

 

Today, it laughed.  _ You will know soon. _

 

* * *

 

Rather than a month, Kayla resisted for another year. Even after she passed on her title and authority, she remained with her son as he began the difficult process of gaining the people’s trust. She knew her belief in him was sometimes all he could cling to. 

 

_ Dance with me, Kayla. Tonight. And forever. _

 

‘Moira is pregnant. I have to be there for the birth.’

 

The voice sighed.  _ You will not. Your time is gone, little queen. Come away and dance. _

 

‘I –’

 

“Kayla.”

 

Nothing had ever startled her so badly. Before, it had always been clear the voice had not been something she truly heard, but something sounding only within her mind. Now, without warning, it was really there. She turned slowly.

 

He was taller than her, though that wasn’t difficult. Her own daughter was as well, and even she was only of average height. Still, the owner of the mysterious voice towered above her. He had blond hair restrained at the base of his neck with a deep green ribbon that precisely matched his almond shaped eyes. There seemed to be a faint shimmer to him, like a heat vision in the desert. 

 

“You’re real,” she gasped.

 

“I have always been real, and I think you have known that for a very long time.”

 

She had, but that had not prepared her for him. He was so beautiful it hurt. “Why do you want me so badly?”

 

A smile flashed across his chiseled features. “Because you are mine. You have fought the calling for far longer than any other human, though. I am impressed.”

 

“I’m still fighting.”

 

He tsked gently. “Really, Kayla. Will you resist even now? You need not stay here any longer. I have spoken to you for almost forty years. Will you not accept me?”

 

“I can’t dance.” It was foolish to repeat what she had said as a child of only six, but she did. “I’m not what you want.”

 

“Dance with me, Kayla. Now and forever. Join the faerie ring.” He kissed her hand. “Do you not know why you were called?”

 

She shook her head, unable to speak, even as he swung her into a gentle dance.

 

“You are a child of my kind, little queen. Your mother was one of ours, and thus so are you. More, you are my intended bride.”

 

“How –?”

 

“Your mother promised you to me when you were born, Kayla. Still, you wished to remain in this world. I allowed it because I knew it would only make the dance that much greater once it began. Your human mate, the one who sired your children… You did not care for him.”

 

Kayla couldn’t argue a truth she had always known. “Who are you?”

 

“My name is Ainmire.”

 

“Ainmire,” she repeated. “‘Great lord’.”

 

He inclined his head. “Indeed.”

 

In that moment, she understood she had no place left in the mortal world. That she had never really belonged there at all. “Ainmire? Will you ask me again?”

 

His laugh was soft, but not mocking. “Will you come away with me, Kayla, and join the dance forever?”

 

“Yes,” she whispered.

 

* * *

 

Erik tried not to cry as he penned the difficult letter to his sister. After all, how do you tell your twin that the woman who birthed and raised you was gone without a trace?

 

He had feared a kidnapping and waited with baited breath for a ransom demand, but none came. As the months passed, he had sent word to Moira, asking if she had news. There was none, but she said she hoped something would be found out. Any such wish had died now. A year had passed without even a hint she was alive.

 

_ Don’t weep for me, my precious boy. _

 

Erik leapt to his feet. “Mother?!”

 

_ Hush, my love. I am well. _

 

“Where are you?! What happened?!”

 

_ Oh, Erik, really, I am well. I just… moved on. You and your sister did not need me. _

 

“Moved on?”

 

_ I went to the faeries, and I am happy. I promise. _

 

The voice was fading, and he tried to hold back his panic. “Will we ever see you again?”

 

_ Not in this world, but someday, the dance will call for you as well. Good-bye, Erik, and tell your sister I love her. _

 

And shout though he might, she did not speak again.


End file.
